Finding The Lucky Ticket To Happiness

MY FAVORITE CAR

I started imagining all sorts of things when the phone rang after midnight that December night in 1962.

When I answered, a strange man asked for Sally, my wife.

It would be a call that would change our lives.

When she got on the phone, the caller told her he was from the Clifton Boys Club in our then-hometown of Clifton, N.J., and that she had just won a new 1963 Lincoln Continental in a raffle, and could she bring the ticket stub to the clubhouse and claim the car.

At first, all I could hear of the conversation was Sally thanking the caller over and over. I didn't know what was going on.

Then she hung up the phone, turned, let out a scream and said to me: ``Buddy, we won a car.''

Then I screamed, too.

The situation seemed so unlikely. I had bought two raffle tickets from a co-worker named Chuck, put Sally's name on one of them, stashed them away and forgot to tell Sally about them.

I forgot where I put the tickets, too.

What a mess that was. We turned the house upside-down without finding those tickets before I remembered my ``lucky'' hiding spot. There they were.

Needless to say, we didn't get a lot of sleep that night.

The next day when we saw the car, we were overwhelmed. It was a big, shiny black sedan with a white, leather interior and every option imaginable. The car had won the ``Luxury Car of the Year'' award, and it was easy to see why. It was something beyond our wildest dreams.

This came at a turning point in our lives. I had left Max Goldstein & Sons clothiers in Passaic, N.J., after 25 years to go out on my own. I became successful in business and real estate and, best of all, our two girls grew up to marry two great guys. Now, 33 years later, we have six great-grandchildren, including twins graduating from college.

The Continental was with us for 10 years, and in that time we put 63,000 loving miles on it and never had a problem. I treated it well and it did the same for me.

Eventually, we sold it to a classic car dealer, but I never got over my love affair with it. It was, after all, the car that changed our lives.